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Sri Lanka President Gotabaya Rajapaksa thanks India for ‘invaluable assistance’

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Monday thanked visiting External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar for India’s “invaluable assistance” to Sri Lanka, which is grappling with one of its worst economic crises. Following Mr. Jaishankar’s meetings with President Gotabaya, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa on Monday, Reuters news agency, citing “two sources” in Colombo, reported that Sri Lanka has …

Sri Lanka Bans Tamil Remembrance of War Dead After Court Petitions by Gotabaya Rajapaksa-led Govt

Commemorations for Tamil Tiger rebels killed in Sri Lanka’s decades-long civil war were banned on Friday after court petitions by the government of strongman President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Sri Lanka’s 37-year conflict began in 1972 when Tamil Tigers waged a bloody war against government troops in a campaign for a separate homeland for their ethnic minority group. His government petitioned courts …

Rajapaksa

Sri Lanka’s main Tamil party on Tuesday urged President Gotabaya Rajapaksa not to “regress into naked majoritarianism”, that in the past gave rise to a conflict, resulting in armed hostilities spanning over three decades. Referring to the Ceylon Citizenship Act of 1948, “a rank majoritarian act” that denied Indian origin Tamils citizenship, the Sinhala only Act of 1956, and the …

Sri Lanka’s main Tamil party, the Tamil National Alliance, on Thursday officially endorsed presidential candidate Sajith Premadasa, ahead of the November 16 poll. Sajith Premadasa of the United National Party-led New Democratic Alliance, Gotabaya Rajapaksa of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna -led National People’s Party and former army general Mahesh Senanayake are …

As many as 35 candidates are running for President in Sri Lanka’s November 16 election, but northern Tamils view it as a two-cornered fight between Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Sajith Premadasa. However, voters across the Northern Province dread the possible return of a Rajapaksa — this time the former President’s brother and a powerful war-time Defence Secretary — to the helm. …

In Sri Lanka’s presidential poll in 2015, the Tamil National Alliance, representing Tamils of the north and east, led its constituency in a crucial protest vote against then President Mahinda Rajapaksa. He has even gone to Jaffna — he was the first Prime Minister of India to ever visit Jaffna — and has assured us that India’s policy towards Sri …